I Wonder
by ceridwen-amyed
Summary: A little vingette set before Satine meets Christian, after she's been at the Moulin Rouge for about a year or so. Please r&r!


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Disclaimer: Characters, places, etc do not belong to me. I'm just borrowing them from Baz. 'I Wonder' is from Disney's Sleeping Beauty and belongs to Disney. I am not making money from this, though god knows I need it. This is just for my own and hopefully others pleasure J 

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Author's Note: This is set a few years before Satine meets Christian, when she's been at the Moulin Rouge for a year or so.

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I Wonder

By 

Christine aka Piglitgirl

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Satine kept her eyes closed long after it had finished. Partly because tonight she was playing the role of Wilting Flower, and partly because if she kept her eyes closed she didn't have to look at the man again and could just pretend that all of this was a very bad dream and soon she would wake up in a bright, clean room, on a bed she had never slept on with a man in exchange for money.

The man traced a finger down the side of her face and she reluctantly opened her eyes, looking coyly at him. Of all the personas she had developed over the years, Wilting Flower was her least favourite. She felt so helpless, so delicate as if the man she was with could break her with a too hard embrace. She supposed that was the point of it, to make the man feel powerful but she hated it. Hated feeling vulnerable just because that was what he wanted. Smouldering Temptress was much better: she was in control. Bright & Bubbly was better than Wilting Flower, even though that was just because the man assumed that she was just a ditzy girl who knew nothing of the world and was to be pitied.

The man there with Satine now smiled.

"You were wonderful, my dear."

Satine nodded, fighting the revulsion she could feel building in her throat. "You too."

He smiled and got up and dressed. She watched him dully, empty inside. He glanced at her again, a smile that was more of a smirk playing on his lips. He opened the door and strolled out, shutting the door decisively. Satine scrambled for the robe that lay under the bed and pulled it on. She gathered the scraps of clothing she had been wearing and hurried towards her dressing room, needing to have a bath and brush her teeth.

As she rushed headlong down the corridor, she spied out of a window a Diamond Dog, looking suspiciously like Araby lead a laughing man up to the Elephant in the garden. The man wore finely cut clothes and was likely to be a Duke or nobility of some kind, decided Satine. A night in the Elephant with one of Zidler's Diamond Dogs cost a fortune. Satine had been there once and despite her reason for being there, she liked it. It was so outlandish, she could almost believe that it was a dream.

Satine swallowed. She had come to the Moulin Rouge, looking for a place to stay, a place to be somebody. And she loved performing, dancing and singing; even the Bohemian lifestyle appealed to her. She had not wanted to be a courtesan. But what could you do, when the world was full of rich men and the streets full of danger and you were young and beautiful and exactly what rich men wanted?

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Her dressing room was small and cramped. Soon, Zidler had promised, she would be moved to a bigger one. She was fast on her way to becoming the star of the show and so, she would be treated as the star he said. _Maybe_, she thought._ But maybe by then it would mean nothing to me, when all these men and their grabbing hands and peppered kisses had finally taken away my soul. _She was certain that this was happening: that every man she slept with took away a piece of her as he shut the door. If only one would stay, maybe he would give it back to her. But they all left.

She sat down heavily at her dresser and stared at her mirror. Her reflection stared back and she was surprised at the cold beauty it showed her, despite it being scrubbed clean of make up and her hair tucked up in a towel.

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It's already happened. I'm a shadow of what I used to be. If only I could remember what I used to be.

She glanced at the birds in a cage hanging by her mirror. She could still remember Harold giving them to her.

"Some sparrows for my sparrow!" he had smiled at her and she had laughed, taking them and thanking him. She found out later that they were larks not sparrows, but she supposed that it didn't really matter. She had named them Peter and Paul, remembering a childhood rhyme.

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Two little dicky-birds sitting on a wall,

One named Peter and one named Paul.

Fly away Peter, fly away Paul.

Come back Peter, and come back Paul.

This of course, was before she had found out that Peter was female. _No matter_, she decided smiling at them. They sat side by side, regarding Satine with calm eyes. Peter turned to Paul and pecked him lightly on the head. Paul turned his head and they kissed, making Satine sigh wistfully. An iron bar seemed to rest on her chest.

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I wonder, she sang softly, _I wonder,_

I wonder why each little bird has a someone,

To sing to, sweet things to,

A gay little lark melody.

She turned away from the birds and went to her tiny window, overlooking the hill beyond Montmartre, at fields and trees and little paths, all glowing prettily in the moonlight.

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I wonder, I wonder,

If my heart keeps singing, will my song go winging,

To someone, who'll find me

And bring back a love song to me.

For the briefest moment, Satine felt like she was flying, past the fields and paths, across towns, villages, seas and then a city, at least the size of Paris. A large, comfortable looking house, the type that she would have liked to live in. She saw a man, no, more of a boy sitting at his window, a notebook open in his lap. He looked up at her, his green cat-like eyes smiling at her. They sang out to her, saw into her true nature, her soul. They had not taken it away, or perhaps he had given it back. It didn't really matter. He started to speak.

"Come-"

"Dreaming again, Satine?" The image was shattered. Satine jumped and twisted around, feeling as if she'd fallen from a very great height onto some very soft cushions. Nini and China Doll were standing in the doorway regarding her with amused expressions. She sat up straighter.

"How long have you been there?" she asked breathlessly.

"Long enough," said Nini a slight smile twisting her face. She entered the room. "You can't afford to dream. Whatever you were before you came here, whatever hopes you had for the future, you're now a Diamond Dog. Nothing more."

"Leave me alone," whispered Satine, turning back to the view. She thought, _maybe, just maybe, if I concentrate hard enough I'll see that boy again_. 

Nini shrugged and turned to go. She paused at the door and looked back at Satine. "You'll learn." She smiled at China Doll and left. China Doll did not move from the doorway. She looked after Nini and then back at Satine, apparently deliberating something. Satine ignored her and hoped she would leave. This seemed to decide things for China Doll and she sat down beside Satine in a heavy velvet chair that dwarfed her delicate frame.

"She's right you know," she began softly. Satine's eyes flicked towards her and then back to the window. "I know Nini, can be… well, a bit of a bitch sometimes, but she is right. You can't afford to dream here."

"Why not?" asked Satine feeling angry now. "If it gives me a little hope-"

"That's why we can't afford to dream! Hope can raise our spirits only to drop them from a great height." Satine said nothing. China Doll sighed and played with the thread of velvet that had worked its way loose.

"We all dream of getting out of here," she began again. "We all dream of some handsome prince to come a sweep us off our feet like Sleeping Beauty, but this is real life, Satine. The only men who come here and want us are the one's we sleep with. They won't save us. I don't know if there are any good men out there but if there are," she sighed. "They never come to the Moulin Rouge."

Satine thought of the boy in her vision. He was far away, across a sea. If he did exist (and a part of her mind was laughing at her for even thinking such a thing), he was too far away. Why would he leave his big house for the Moulin Rouge? They surely had places like that wherever he was. Satine swallowed.

"You can't stop me dreaming," she said stubbornly.

"No," agreed China Doll. "I can't. But I can tell you that it's a dangerous waste of time. Don't set yourself up for disappointment." She paused, seeing that she was not getting through to Satine. She tried a different tack.

"Do you want to leave this place, Satine? Eventually, I mean."

Satine nodded. Of course she did.

"So does everyone else here. We want to become actresses, dancers, singers, poets, writers, artists… everything that we are-"

"-Without selling ourselves."

China Doll nodded. "What do you want to become Satine?"

Satine shifted uncomfortably. She'd only told Harold about her secret dream. She liked China Doll but hardly spoke to her. Could she really confide in the other woman? China Doll looked expectantly at her.

"An actress," said Satine finally. She drew herself up. "A _real_ actress."

China Doll nodded, not looking surprised. "Then you had better start acting. You're paid to make men feel happy, to believe whatever they want to believe. You're not paid to dream about love."

Satine looked at her, slightly shocked at the biting note in her voice.

"If you want to make it out of here," she continued, eyeing Peter and Paul in their cage, "focus on becoming a real actress. Don't dream about Prince Charming. Dream about the applause of the audience, the sound of the curtain rising." She smiled and reached over and took Satine's hands. Satine stared, surprised at China Doll's sudden mood change but there was another reason. She'd been at the Moulin Rouge for over a year now and never had anyone taken her hands like this, the way a friend or a lover might. China Doll gave her hands a little shake, as if to punctuate what she was saying.

"Keep thinking about the day, you're announced on the bill not as a…a… _courtesan_ but as an actress. Do whatever and I mean _whatever_ it takes you to do it." Satine nodded, her stomach whirling in a mixture of excitement of the idea of becoming an actress, happiness at the feel of human contact made out of genuine care and nausea at "whatever" she had to do. China Doll nodded along with her and gave her hands one last squeeze. She got up and left the room, shutting the door gently on the way out. 

Satine looked at the door, thinking that maybe she had at last made a real friend, someone who would act as a big sister to her. Everything at the Moulin Rouge was familiar to her now, from the scent of opium drifting from the windmill to the heat of the lights in the main gallery, but still, sometimes she felt just as lost as she did the first day here. It would be nice to have someone she could rely on. Marie was lovely but she was focused on all the girls, not just Satine.

"It's probably just wishful thinking," she said out loud to Peter and Paul. "I mustn't get too attached to anyone…That was the first thing I learnt here. Well," she laughed bitterly, "maybe the second." A wave of loneliness engulfed her but she pushed it away.

"A real actress…" she murmured staring out the window, wondering absently what the boy was doing now.

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Stop it, said a harsh voice in her mind. _He's probably not even real, and if he is, he won't help you become an actress! He won't help you get out of here. Only _you_ can help you get out of here. You have to…_

"Do what I have to do," she finished. She stood up, turned her back to the window and looked at Peter and Paul.

"And I'll do it too. I'll become a real actress and fly away from here. I'll take you with me of course," she added hastily, putting her face close to the cage bars. She took it off its hook and carefully carried the cage over to the window. 

"What do you think? Like to live there?" The birds chirped and flapped their wings. Satine laughed. She put the cage back above her dresser and looked critically at her reflection. She knew that the reason Harold encouraged his girls to create personas was not just to please the Moulin Rouge's clientele but because it was easier to give yourself away if you were not yourself. Some of the girls seemed to carry it to extremes: take China Doll. She exploited her porcelain skin and big eyes by making herself up to be a real life doll. An almost black sheet of paper that any fantasy could be played out on. 

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I won't do that, she thought, _I won't go that far. I'll become something else, but I won't forget myself. I'll let them believe what they want to believe but I'll let my smile, my eyes let them know what I really am. I won't let them touch the real me. If they can't touch my soul, they can't take it away, piece by piece until I'm empty. I'll survive._

She looked outside the window again. She would not admit to herself that the reason she would remember herself was in case that boy _was_ real. In case he did come to her, with a love song of his own. Her heart was to become a secret garden with high walls that not even she could climb. 

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Maybe he holds the key, she thought, without the thought really registering. _Maybe he'll come…_

"I wonder," she whispered one last time.


End file.
